As the salar has no natural outflow, when it does rain the salar floods with an extremely thin layer of water (barely ankle deep even at its most extreme), creating what is essentially the world’s largest mirror.
posted by Chrysostom
on Nov 17, 2011 -
16 comments
Copa América is streamed live on YouTube. Copa América is the oldest international football competition, having been held first in 1916. This is a contest between the 10 South American nations and two invitational teams, this time Costa Rica and Mexico, who both sent young squads (Japan was slated to take part but
withdrew due to the earthquake). The tournament started yesterday with Bolivia unexpectedly managing to
hold Argentina to a draw. Colombia are currently beating a 10-man Costa Rica 1-0. Brazil start their campaign tomorrow, against Venezuela. One of the world's premier football writers, Jonathan Wilson, wrote previews of the three groups,
A,
B and
C. The Independent has more light-hearted
team previews.
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 2, 2011 -
13 comments
"While we were there, sitting by the fire one night, I saw an extraordinary-looking dog that appeared to have
two noses. I was sober at the time, and then I remembered the story that the legendary explorer
Colonel Percy Fawcett came back with in 1913 of seeing such strange dogs in the Amazon jungle", explains fellow British Colonel John Blashford-Snell. The double-schnoz phenomenon has been documented in other
species, and has even been
studied,
dramatized, and
synthesized in humans. But a clue has recently been discovered in Bolivia that hints at not just a random mutation, but what might have once been a multi-snouted dog breed.
posted by Toekneesan
on Aug 13, 2007 -
30 comments
In the 1981 film
Escape from New York, the entire island of Manhattan had been converted to a self-sufficient, walled off open air prison, devoid of guards & cells. The fiction of the film bears an alarming similarity to the
reality of life in San Pedro Prison, a walled off, police-free convict slum in Bolivia's capital city, La Paz. This fascinating/horrifying experiment in criminal justice is the feature of a
2003 eponymous documentary; some of the details include the story of a drug kingpin, unhappy with his cell, who had a second story constructed to allow more breathing room; or the prison soccer team, sponsored by coca-cola, or even the non-prisoner children of the imprisoned,
who roam the streets of San Pedro ("At least this way the parents live with their kids, and the family stays together. Outside, they’d have nowhere to live").
posted by jonson
on Sep 7, 2006 -
24 comments
My mother is very worried. ExxonMobil moved in and helped Bolivia
develop, she says. Now they have food and medicine, thanks to the kindly hand of Big Business. But
now Bolivia's
kicking them out. After Exxon spent 3 billion dollars helping them! What will happen to the next poor country that needs Exxon's
help?
posted by redsparkler
on May 3, 2006 -
110 comments
Latin
America
Turning
Left?
From the top
:
Lula da Silva*,
Lopez Obrador,
Nestor Kirchner,
Hugo Chavez*,
Alvaro Uribe,
Michelle Bachelet*,
Ollanta Humala,
Alfredo Palacio,
Oscar Berger,
Leonel Fernandez,
Oscar Arias,
Tony Saca,
Tabare Vazquez,
Martín Torrijos,
Evo Morales*
Manuel Zelaya,
Nicanor Duarte,
Daniel Ortega,
Rene Preval*.
posted by airguitar
on Apr 13, 2006 -
30 comments
Coca culture (NYT) I am a cocalera. I owe my life to coca. My father died when I was 2 and my mother raised six children by growing coca. I was a farmer myself, growing coca for traditional purposes. But the United States says it is better for us to just forget about coca. In the early 1990's, Bolivian officials distributed American money — $300 to $2,500 per farm — and told us to try yucca and pineapples. But 60 pineapples earn us only about eight bolivianos (about $1). And unlike coca, yucca and pineapples are difficult to carry to the cities to sell, and they spoil. So many farmers returned to growing coca.
posted by magullo
on Oct 16, 2003 -
34 comments
Bubonic plague strikes again... It seems that
bubonic plague has never actually gone away with reports of occurences in
Madagascar, Bolivia and now it seems, from New Mexico. Given that the disease has been diagnosed and treated outside of the host cities in the cases of the Bolivian woman and the couple in New York, I think this highlights how diseases we tend to classify as third world health problems, are merely a plane ride away from causing an outbreak here.
posted by gloege
on Nov 7, 2002 -
26 comments
